Ward 48

Chapter 8 [Edited]

Nicole's arm flexed the wooden desk, her knuckles white. A small piece of the old desk broke off and snapped into brittle shards.

No, No, No, NO! This can not be happening! Nicole thought to herself.

Vera crouched down to the shaking Nicole and started rubbing her back in the motion of small circles.

I trusted him! I looked up to him, and he betrayed me! Nicole thought.

"Is that who I think it is?" Vera asked, prying the picture from Nicole's hands and brushing a thick layer of dust off of the picture.

"It is! It's him! But..." Vera trailed off

Lucy motioned to the dumbstruck Nicole. "Vera, let's leave her alone for now. She really looked up to him, and I think that we should leave it to her to figure out how he did this,"

The 3 girls walked out of the room leaving Nicole alone to think the whole thing through.

Nicole slowly stood up, the floor creaking beneath her.

"Okay, let's re-evaluate this situation," Nicole said to herself as she took out a black notebook with all of the evidence and clues so far that have been leading to this case.

After about 10 or so good minutes of pondering, Nicole hit a dead end once more. She rifled through most plastic surgery websites, databases and even clothing stores, to see where he shopped. But, nothing came up.

This doesn't make any sense... how did he manage to change the structure of his whole face, but his name does not appear on any of the things that I search? Nicole mused.

And the hospital! How did he manage to get in and out without leaving anything behind?

Nicole stood up. "I'm thinking too much about this. I need some help," Nicole said to herself as she exited the old room and glided down the rotting stairs, holding the picture frame along with her purple backpack.

"Hi Nicole. You feeling better?" Lucy asked, walking over to her.

"Yeah. I just needed some time to process some things. I would have never guessed it was someone so close to me," Nicole replied.

Vera creased her brows in worry. "Nicole, something is bothering you. You don't have your notebook and you aren't screaming 'I FOUND SOMETHING!'. What's troubling you?"

Nicole looked at Vera, then proceeded to take out the black notebook.

"I was reviewing some things that I wrote down in this notebook and no matter how I sliced it, I came to a dead end every time, and I thought that enlisting the help of you guys might help me get out of this road block," Nicole explained.

"And I'm guessing that you need some help on how to do this?" Vera offered, waving her hand.

"Yeah, I keep trying, but it seems like he hid his steps real well. Guess he didn't want anyone finding out about what he did," Nicole sighed.

"Show us what you have, and we can try and take it from there. I have my phone and you have your computer. With everyone, we might be able to do this," Vera said.

Nicole took our her black notebook, filled with drawings and scribbles galore. From what the rest could make out, there seemed to be some sort of diagram.

"You tried to sort of 'stalk' him and figure out where he shopped, and what he did to pull this off?" Vera asked.

"Yep, but, I'm not exactly sure how to do it. He blocked everything, and it's next to impossible to erase everything on the internet, and, I was thinking about how he re-altered the structure of his face using plastic surgery, but it did not show up anywhere! Not even to the place where he got it, Wyoming!" Nicole said, waving her hands up in the air.